Off Topic The Review Thread

ive been watching the bridge on tvnz on demand
not something I would have got around to watching in a weekly series but I have enjoyed it

 

I hope they do leave it there, I’ve had enough of it. British TV is beginning to follow the US model - if a show is popular keep it going long after it’s natural lifespan has been passed.

 

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Because they're awkward ****ers. Why call a sport football when it's mainly played with your hands, and then invent the name soccer for a sport that uses the feet?
Why the World Series, when there's only a handful of nations who play that particular sport?
And don't get me started on elevator, sidewalk, jelly and all of their terrible spelling like color etc!

 

The only long series I can recall watching every episode of is Mad Men, all 93 of them. And that was because the family needed a first lockdown (remember that) joint quest. The first series was brilliant, then huge chunks of it were a bit of a chore, but it was very well acted and made and worked in a number of levels. And at least it wasn’t murder after murder. I’ve seen most of the first season of The Sopranos, it’s really good, but I’ve got it now, no need to see any more. I was hooked on the first two series of American Gods, but that lost itself in series three and I gave up after 3 episodes and I hear that they aren’t being funded for season 4 - a classic case of writers leaving the source material and ending up a blind alley.

The Americans also do this with comedies. Seinfeld is a work of genius, mostly, but I really don’t need 180 episodes of it. I’ve got 12 of Fawlty Towers, and that’s fine thanks.

I used to do most of my film watching on transatlantic flights, so that’s fallen off a bit……

 

Breaking Bad is worth the effort - so good, it's the only show I've watched all episoses of twice.

Agree about American Gods - it went totally off piste, and I was left pretty confused by the end - the problem of having read the book first and then trying to recall it whilst the show was headed off in the other direction.

The only American comedy that grabs the attention for me is Frasier - superbly written. It's on a constant loop on C4 at the moment, and I managed to catch the last episode, immediately followed by the first during the week. Rumour has it that they are planning a re-boot, with some of the original characters (they would have to address the death of Martin though).

 

Just thinking logically about this now - a lot of their shows used to be 13 episodes long, the length of a season.....?

 

Obviously not the case with TV as it’s relatively recent, but for a lot of your other examples the Americans use the words which we used to use. Apparently ‘soccer’ was in common use in Britain until the late sixties. Similarly with the spelling, which is pretty random in English anyway (to the frustration of people trying to learn the language), the US spelling often dates back a few centuries. Bill Bryson wrote a book about it, Mother Tongue, but it’s a bit dull to be honest, unlike his travel stories.

I’ve been told that The Wire is the perfect long format programme, because each season/series addresses a different aspect of a city, rather than stretching a single story ever more thinly. But I haven’t seen any.

 

It’s called the World Series because the first few finals were sponsored by a newspaper (no longer existing) called “the world”.
Mets currently top of their league, go Mets

 

This is why I respect Ricky Gervais.

I know he's not everybody's cup of tea (personally I love his TV programmes) but he has had several hugely successful shows that he could have milked for years and endless series.

Instead, no matter how successful they are (including the current 'Afterlife', which is a mega-hit and has earned him numerous awards and accolades) he always calls it a day after 3 series, leaving you wanting more.

You then look back on these shows with a real warm affinity rather than growing bored and let-down with endless rehashed ideas and tired characters.

Oh, and 'The Wire' is definitely worth watching in its entirety.

 

Might be a bit slow in places for some people but the first series of the wire is very good
Bought all five so I must watch the rest some time

 

I've seen the odd episode here and there, although it's been years since I last watched one. From what I remember it was very good. Remember watching Oz about the same time - now that was something else, very very violent - I bought all of that on DVD at the time, imported from US so had to hack the DVD player to play the region restricted DVDs!

 

I have a new respect for Jed Mercurio and the finale of Line of Duty. It seems the character of Ian 'H' Buckells may be allegorical of Boris Johnson, a bumbling incompetent continually promoted above his ability.

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We're watching The Wire at the moment, and this is right. You can really enjoy each series without having watched any other, and we enjoy taking quite a long break between each series as it's not designed to make you want to watch the next episode right that second. Probably a result of it being produced in a pre-Netflix era. Has a similar cadence to Mad Men in many respects, which I also really enjoyed.

The Wire pushes the West Wing very close for me as most enjoyable series, but I appreciate Sorkin is a bit marmite.

 

I have just started watching Mare of Easttown on Sky. one limited season
Stars Kate Winslet and the fella from Neighbours. Set around a small US town where everyone knows each other. Winslet plays the local police detective. there is a missing girl and another one murdered.
It reminds me of The Killing with many suspects to choose from. Im on episode 3 now and it has been good. My old mate Kate has matured as an actress since the days of Titanic and does a fab job. worth a watch.

Here is the trailer

 

For me Madness are one of the most perfect pop bands ever from this country or anywhere else for that matter. The whole was way bigger that the sum of the parts. Apart from being from the wrong part of London there’s not much wrong with them. And this lovely little film is a bit of social history which will resonate with a lot of us, of a certain vintage.

 

I assume you've seen them? We've seen them a couple of times, big party gig

 

Yeah, quite a few times, great fun and sometimes outstanding - when they did the Liberty of Norton Folgate it was like a Weimar Republic music hall event. I think a version of that concert is on YouTube as well, worth a look. Suggs hasn’t got the greatest voice in the world, and sometimes it’s disastrously off, but he is a huge and charming character, and the fantastic hooks on some of these songs means that the whole audience is singing along anyway.